Skeletons
by s. du jour
Summary: Edward kills Charlie, forcing Bella to come to some realisations about what she really wants for her life - but the wedding's going to happen anyway. Psychological horror, some violence. Dark, but you may have guessed that. Not OOC.


**This fic was written for the Writers Anonymous Forum "Comfort Zone Challenge". I was given a choice between the genres of horror and action/adventure. Vigilante!Edward didn't want to co-operate with me, so you guys get this instead.**

**You may see hints of my love/hate relationship with Twilight in this fic. ****I've tried to keep this in character, and to make any ways in which Edward and Bella might change believable. It's a stretch, so if you review (and I hope you will!), I'd welcome thoughts on this in particular.****

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As I stare at the scene in front of me, I finally find my voice. It sounds so pitiful and frail. It's not possible for something this small to confront so strong a person. But I try anyway. I must. "Edward, no, please, stop—"

But I'm too late. In one movement it is over, so fast I cannot look away because I'm not sure I've even seen what I've seen. But I've heard that sickening crack of Charlie's neck, seen the dark blood well up underneath his skin, watched drops of bright scarlet liquid escaping the gash of broken skin where bone has pierced it; and I'm staring at it all in shock, trying to figure this out. My father was alive one moment ago. Now his whole history, his past doesn't matter, because his body might be here, but he no longer _is_. How this can be doesn't make sense. Death can't exist, it's not possible for a life to be so completely gone—it's not, it's not! It can't be!

I realise I'm saying these last thoughts aloud, stumbling over the words, jerkily moving forward to my father's corpse. My vision is blurred by tears. I finally collapse at his side. "Dad! Dad, no!" I sob the words far louder than I mean to, as if mere volume could do anything. I shake him, gasping, my clawed fingers digging into his skin as I try to bring him back from the dead—and then I see my father's face. I've been trying so hard not to look. The eyes, his eyes, are wide open with fear, his mouth lolling open horribly—that's not my dad.

My dad, who loved fishing, who was good at his job, who tried his best to protect the inhabitants of Forks, who took me in a year and a half ago when we hadn't seen each other for years, who put snow chains on my truck when it got cold, who did his best to bring me out of my stupor when Edward left. The man in the wedding photo with Renee, smiling fit to burst even though he never smiles that much anymore. The man who still loved her and thought I never knew.

That's not my dad lying there. No. And it can't have been Edward who killed him.

I try to deny it, but somehow I can't. Reality is too vivdly burnt into my brain. My eyes can never unsee it. Now, now the enormity of taking a life is revealed to me. And how many had Edward taken before he turned back to Carlisle's way of life? Far, far too many. Those vaguely-imagined lives that I dismissed casually as being a natural stage of rebellion against his 'father' were real people—no matter their crimes, they mean more to me now than ever.

For ten years, this was what Edward was.

I remember that he is standing above me, and gasp reflexively, so quickly it's almost a hiccup. I can feel his eyes on my back. I feel that ice-cold presence lean down behind me. To drink? To deal me the same fate? I stiffen, but in this broken state I can't hold a pose for too long. I start shaking almost immediately with the effort, tears loosened from my eyes by the shuddering movements. Silently, he nudges me up to a standing position. Steadily and slowly, he pulls me over to him. His hands, those murdering hands, grasp my elbows with a gentle touch that hints at the steel underneath. As he turns me around slowly, my back to the body—my father—I know that my eyes are as wide open as Charlie's are. He places those terrible hands on my shoulder, then on my soft cheeks, as if to stop the shaking. He looks into my eyes, gazing into them, trying to reassure me. As if anything could now!

I am nothing more than a frightened animal, as frightened as the deer he hunts in the forest. Nothing more than an instinct to run. But my limbs feel like they're stuck in quicksand and my cheeks are too cold for me to think of anything else beyond the fact that I'm standing here with a man who could kill me before I knew I was being attacked.

Time passes and neither of us move. The silence around us grows thick and hot with anticipation. I wonder if he feels it too.

And then: instead of killing me, he drops his hands from my face and says urgently, "Listen, Bella, now you have to marry me. You can't tell anyone what you have seen, do you hear me? Bella, I need to keep you safe. You need to help me keep my family safe."

When I move my lips in soundless patterns, unable to speak, still trapped by the silence, he says, "Bella, Bella, I'm so sorry." There is sorrow in his voice, sorrow that shouldn't be there. He doesn't have a right to it. It's _my_ father lying on the floor, not his!

The home I know seems to swim around me, blurring into bright colours that could be black and white for all I care.

And then I can't focus on anything but Charlie's death. My body won't stay upright. I fall, but I don't hit the ground. Hard angled arms catch me. Automatically, I lean into them, then stop as I remember what has happened. Charlie's neck snaps over and over again in front of my eyes whether I close them or not. The details get more and more gruesome with each replay. Did I really see all that blood? Did I imagine it? It's all too realistic for me to tell.

I shut my eyes even more tightly, shake my head. Faint tears create itchy tracks on my cheeks. Why can't I cry properly? My dad of all people deserves that.

Edward murmurs my name again, voice full of that nonsensical regret. Dimly, I am aware that he is running those cool, too-strong hands lightly over my body, under my shirt and over my lower and upper back. And then suddenly my senses return in full force because this is something new to me, something he's never done before, and I can't help but shiver with the intimacy these killing hands give.

I know his intent is to soothe me and calm me down, to make me forget, even. But I can't enjoy it. I can't triumph over making him cross his boundaries, over making him touch me where he wouldn't before. I don't want it now. Only now that I know the true cost of love do I want to shun it as much as possible.

And I thought the worst thing that could happen today would be Charlie's disapproval. I want to laugh. I've failed my father in a bigger way.

**ooo**

_I sat with Edward on the loveseat, more nervous than I'd ever been before. As Charlie's cruiser purred into the driveway, I wanted to hide my ring more than anything, maybe delay telling him a while. Then came the footsteps. Each one seemed to seal my death warrant._

_I began breathing harder, though I knew I was overreacting. How would Charlie react to my telling him that we were going to get married?_

"_Don't panic, Bella. It's just an engagement. Please try to remember you're not confessing to a crime, here." Edward pulled my hand onto my lap, rather than letting me sit on the ring. His pressure was light, but I didn't pull away. _

_The door slammed; Charlie finally entered the house. _

"_Hey, Dad," I called out apprehensively. Rather than pausing to hang up his coat or gun, Charlie went straight upstairs, calling down a greeting._

"_Hey, Bells. Gotta get back to the station soon, just checking in. Late night tonight. You can order pizza for yourself if you want... Bells, you seen that folder I was looking at a couple nights ago?" His voice was getting closer. He sounded preoccupied, but when he finally entered the loungeroom and saw me sitting with Edward on the loveseat he stiffened a little. _

"_Hey, kids," he said warily, nodding at Edward. "Cullen." I sighed. Charlie didn't like Edward. This was going to be difficult._

"_Chief Swan," said Edward, despite my meaningful hand-squeezing and silent protests, "we want to talk to you."_

**ooo**_  
_

"He would have told somebody, Bella. I could hear his thoughts." A pause, as he rests his head on mine. "Oh, my Bella, my Bella, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, love. I had to protect my family. I had to protect you."

Protect me? By killing my own father?

In my hysterical state, I must feed those words into my mind one by one. Only gradually do they begin to make a twisted sort of sense. If the law came down on the Cullens, they wouldn't be able to hide. The Volturi would fly to Forks in an instant to dispose of anybody even remotely suspicious of the Cullens—perhaps even the Cullens themselves. I know they are itching for some kind of excuse to do just that.

In this scenario, I would die. They have already hinted as much.

Thoughts of the Volturi make me realise that I cannot escape. If I didn't become a vampire, become part of the Cullen clan, the Volturi would kill me and the Cullens anyway. Carlisle promised them that I'd be changed soon, before I could endanger their safety; and the Volturi don't take bargains lightly.

There would be bloodshed. Perhaps it was for the best—

No. _No._ How can I say such a thing? Edward had his reasons, but he didn't do the right thing this time. Not when it ended with my father's death.

"I can't let you go," he whispers between kisses to my neck and throat that make me moan, holding me possessively. "I can't live without you. You're my life. I lost you once and you know how it destroyed me."

How easily he twists those declarations of undying love we agreed on into those words back on themselves. Promises we made. The love I have—had—for him wars inside me with the hate and revulsion and, most of all, pure _fear_ that I have of this monster who has killed my father.

"He threatened us, Bella. You heard him yourself. We can't risk it. We can't risk you being exposed when you change. He's part of the police force." And his voice is heavy with implication. But I already know this. I know I can't escape.

But I must.

I've seen him kill, even dismember, once before. That was to save my life from a violent predator. And there was no blood, nothing to make me connect her with something human.

It wasn't the same way this time. Killed in front of my eyes, _my father_. Not a stranger, but a man who only wanted the best for me. I am afraid of him. I _hate_ him.

—and was there more to Charlie's murder than Edward will tell me? Was it... could it have been partly motivated by simple jealousy? Wanting me to himself, rather than share me and share my affections with a human. Wanting Charlie not to complicate things?

_A man who only wanted the best for me._

And in Charlie's eyes, that best didn't include Edward.

I'd already told Edward I'd chosen him. He should have had nothing to worry for. And yet, if he could still do this...

If he could still do something like this then I'm not safe. I've got to protect myself. Up till now I've been running on pure shock. But I have to make a conscious decision now. I cannot let him know my thoughts. I'm so grateful he can't hear them now, grateful that he never could. Whatever made me so impenetrable to him—that is my gift, a saving grace thrown from heaven, and I need to use it. If he even suspects my fear... I have to get out of here before anything happens. But where to go?

La Push. A glimmer of hope rises up in me. Perhaps I'll find a haven on the reservation, be safe, protected. And then I remember: Jacob's gone. The La Push wolves don't like vampires, and they're wary of me. They won't want anything to do with me after something like this.

If I run to my mother in Florida, despite the sun he will pursue me. I know he will, in a way that goes right down to my bones. He'll hunt me by night, anything to protect his family's secret lest I open my mouth. Something inside whispers that he also loves me too much to let me go, will track me down, following me carefully as he has done before. To be wanted so desperately—I almost fall in love with him again for it, and then reason comes clunking down. This is sick, dark: romance twisted on its head. He wanted to protect me that night in Seattle, and now he will use those same skills to trap me in a game that will end with my death. He'll tell me it's to protect me from myself, from other vampires, from anything, but the truth will be something deeper and darker.

He will never give up.

And I am scared witless; one single thought echoes hollowly in my mind: _There is nowhere I can run. Nowhere at all. Nowhere at all. _

I will have to go through with this wedding.

I'll be in it for life—however long that may turn out to be. It could be forever—or it could only be a few days. Will he kill me on the wedding night by accident? Might he decide it's too much of a risk to change me, want to keep me from the three-day pain of a transformation I used to desire?

I would be like him, with him, forever if the transformation took place. I don't want to be changed anymore. I haven't lived yet. I don't want to be scared of the sun, to hide from life. I don't want to be trapped in a frozen, cold, unchanging body. I don't want to be forever with the man who killed my father, and stole away all my hope of a new life. Can it only have been a minute ago that I'd thought that all I'd ever want was Edward?

Bitterly, I think that now I've changed my mind, it's too late.

My thoughts are darting this way and that. I wonder if he'll want to protect me, keep me, and keep me human forever—and if the only possible way for him is to kill me. I imagine a sick suicide pact in which he does both sides of the bargaining. Sunlight, shining, grey cloaks, pain, death...

He's holding me now, but I don't know what he'll do next. Only now do I realise that I've never known. He never made much sense to me, always knowing more than I did, always that much more perfect than I could ever be—and now it's that perfection that I'm terrified of. The perfect killer, the perfect hunter.

_The perfect lover._

These fears and thoughts run through my mind like the wind, and yet the longer he kisses me, the longer he whispers that he loves me, the more this turmoiled mess of panicked emotion is changed into something too crazy to admit to myself. Something that rises up inside to take its rightful place. Something that's been a part of me for so long that I can no longer let it go.

**ooo**

"_What?" Charlie's face changed colour ten times before I could understand anything he was saying; he was almost incoherent with rage. Edward understood his words, though, and reassured my father that I wasn't pregnant, that we had to be together because we loved each other too much to ever want anyone else._

"_Bella, you're only eighteen! You're too young for this!" He looked at Edward. "Both of you are too young!"_

"_But Dad, I—"_

"_Chief Swan—"_

"_You don't know what you want yet. Bella, you have no life outside of the Cullens. It's unhealthy."_

"_With all due respect, Chief Swan, Bella _does_—"_

_Charlie turned his fury on Edward. "And _you_, Cullen; I want you out of this house, now! Something about you don't sit right with me. Never has."_

_I felt Edward tense beside me as Charlie keeps talking. He'd passed the incoherent phase now, entering into his role as a police officer. I didn't like the way this was going._

"_I don't know what it is, but you left my Bella for five months and broke her heart—and now you've come back again and my daughter will do anything for you. And that's good enough for me to say that I don't want her to have anything to do with you again!"_

"_Dad, that was just a misunderstanding. Edward never—" _

"_Bells, I'm not finished, and I don't want to hear you apologise for it. I'm getting sick of this. You're at fault here, too, young lady. Ever since you started going out with this boy, you've been nothing but trouble. The first time you broke up with him, you... you disrespected me and slammed the door in my face. The second time, you went practically catatonic, screaming with nightmares the whole time. Then you ran off for three days, had me and your mother worried sick, and I never got a good explanation for any of it. It don't sit right with me, and it ain't healthy."_

"_Dad—"_

"_And I know he's been in your room—don't deny it, Cullen, I've smelt your cologne all over her bedclothes when I've tucked her in. I've been putting two and two together, and I've come up with something I don't like! This is my house, Bella, and I want my rules respected."_

_I blushed, realising everything Charlie could be thinking right then and there. Still I tried to save the situation, though I had no idea what to say. "Dad, we didn't—I'm a legal adult now. You can't—"_

"_Doesn't mean you've grown up any, Bella. I'm still your father. And I—I don't want to see you make this same mistake I did." He was calming down now, showing a softer side that I didn't often see, and getting gruffer at the same time. "Getting married too young, putting too much trust in something that won't work out... Bella, it's not the kind of life I want for you."_

_He was talking as though Edward wasn't even in the room. I looked at Edward. His face was rigid. _

"_Dad," I was crying quietly now. How could this go so utterly, so disastrously wrong? "Dad, I love him. I love him so much. I know what I want for my life." Even so far as death._

_Edward judged it safe to intercede. "I love her, Charlie. More than life itself." Only I knew how true this was. "And I couldn't bear it if—"_

"_You're young, Cullen. You haven't lived yet. You don't know anything." _

_Edward's body tensed even more at this, and a soft growl escaped him—he wasn't young, he _had_ lived, and he didn't want life anymore without me. His iron self-control was giving way to repeated insults from somebody who couldn't understand. And I could feel that he couldn't take it anymore, that something bad was going to happen..._

"_You're wrong," he said to Charlie softly, menacingly. Charlie ignored him._

"_You're going to leave my daughter alone from this instant onwards, you're going to take this _sham_ ring off her finger—no, I'll do it myself!" And Charlie crossed the room to my side and took the ring from my finger, throwing it into the corner, where the stone fell out of its setting with a tinkling sound. There was no way Edward could have saved it unless he'd revealed his superhuman speed, trapped by the illusion. He stood beside me, glaring at Edward. "And I forbid you to see her or speak to her again. You're a bad influence, Edward Cullen, and I want you out of her life." He breathed heavily, all his words exhausted, red in the face._

_I clung to Charlie's arm, remorse and shame overcoming me. "Dad, don't say that, please. I _love_ Edward. Don't forbid him to see me. I'm sorry for everything, I just had to..." I trailed off. There wasn't anything more I could say._

"_That was my mother's ring," murmured Edward, almost to himself. With the loss of the ring, and the loss of me, his last link to his humanity was broken. I could see it in his eyes._

_And I was scared of how it was going to play out._

**ooo**

The next day, on Edward's direction, I phone the police and say that Charlie never came home last night. He stands by me as I make the call. Nobody knows where he is. Not even me. I have no idea what Edward did with Charlie's—with the body. And I'm too afraid to ask. My nerves are shot to pieces; I'm constantly on edge trying to keep up this charade. I've never been much of an actress at the best of times. But Charlie truly is gone, and this does more to smooth over my story than my acting can.

The Forks police tell me that they're on the case, and Charlie's probably all right, but they don't believe it. Somebody disappears around here at this time of year, it's most likely bears.

And I can't be comforted, because I know what's happened to him anyway.

Renee comes down as soon as she finds a flight that isn't fully booked _and_ manages to catch it. When she finally arrives at the door, a full two days after Charlie's disappearance, days that I have spent with a murderer constantly at my side, I run into my mother's arms, hold her so tightly that I could break. She smoothes my hair, kissing my cheeks and holding me back.

"Oh, baby girl, I'm so sorry." She holds me close. "You can cry if you want to. It's okay." I can hear tears in her voice.

"It's not okay," I say, my own voice catching. "He's gone. I just know it." And I burst into tears, shaking as my mother, my best friend, comforts me and holds me tight.

The house has been swarming with people who don't know what to say but want to comfort me somehow, or perhaps they just want to be where all the news is. There're enough frozen meals in the freezer to feed me for a month. In a way, it helps to be around people, even though I don't really want to talk to them. They think they know, but they don't.

All the Cullens but Alice are here. Their faces are concerned; even Rosalie seems mildly worried. Carlisle and Esme sit with Angela, Edward and me, their hands on mine. They don't know. They can't know, or they wouldn't be here. Alice hasn't told them. Edward is standing in the background as always, the picture he makes of a devoted fiancé preventing me from ever even hinting at something going wrong.

We're both pretending for the sake of everybody. I can't let the other Cullens down. This is my responsibility. None of them deserve what would follow—I can't even imagine the things that would happen should Edward's crime become known.

Renee stays in Charlie's room tonight. I try to block it out but I hear her crying. Even if she's married to Phil, she loved him once, and now he's gone. Edward, who has stayed over openly tonight, is meant to be in the guest room, but of course he's in mine.

I feel his hand on my back. "Bella, are you okay?"

Impulsively, savagely, I do my best to shove him away, which only has the effect of moving his hand a little. "What do you think?" Then I freeze. I have made a mistake, one that could be my last. I can't let my reflexes take over. I'm walking a tightrope. And with this one gesture I may have fallen off, ended everything.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, terrified. My heart is beating like a drum. I know he can hear it. _Please,_ I pray, _let him put it down to nerves._

His face is twisted with pain. "I'm so much more sorry than I can say, Bella. Truly I am. I wish I hadn't had to do this for you. I don't know how you can still love me." He gathers my tense body up in his arms—just as though I were a child who knew nothing and just needed to be comforted. "Thank you. You can't imagine what I feel. Alice knows but I haven't told Carlisle yet. I don't know what he'll say."

I don't know how much to believe, though I know he is unhappy. And the part of me that I don't understand, don't want, can't bear him to be unhappy. "Edward," I say, but can't continue. I have no words and if I did, they would choke up my throat. I want to express my fear, my grief, my desire...

So instead I just kiss him, telling myself it's all a part of the charade. He will think he is forgiven. He will be off-guard. I will have a chance to run... somewhere. I don't know if there is an answer to where I can go, but I have to buy myself some time.

I know I'm lying to myself. His presence doesn't calm me, but it makes me want him. I don't understand myself. That he can do this to me just makes me all the more fearful of him. Could he turn my mind against me as well as my heart?

He kisses me back, softly but urgently. The moment is intimate, made all the more heated by the tension that runs all through me, even now. That traitor part of me wants him to continue, wants to be lost in a love that should no longer exist, but does, defying all odds.

"Stay with me. I'll keep you safe, I'll never hurt you, love," he says into my hair. As though he hasn't already. And now he thinks I have forgiven him, that I am only sad about the loss of my father, not frightened or angry. I do everything I can to encourage this idea. It's my only hope for survival. Despite his promises, he could snap again and I could die.

And I don't want to die, I want to live. A larger part of me than before now wants to live for real, the real life with real experiences that Jacob was telling me about.

A day after Renee arrives, Constable King knocks on my door. Edward tells me and Renee to sit; he'll get it. He stays over at my house openly, now. I'm too wrapped up in my thoughts and grief and fear to care what anybody thinks. We're engaged, and before that we were practically inseparable. I know what everybody thought about us long ago. I can't care about it anymore.

He and Renee each hold one of my hands—Renee's gripping me tightly, Edward's consciously gentle—as Constable King tells us they've found Charlie's body in the woods. Mauled. "You can, uh, view the body if you prefer, but..." he trails off uncomfortably.

"What—what did it?" I ask, my head spinning. Edward hasn't left my side in four days. How did he do it? How did he get rid of the body?

"It, uh... Well, it looks to be a bear, Bella. I'm sorry," he says to me and my mother.

"Oh," I say. Tears spring from my eyes, which are red and sore already. This will only make them worse. Edward wraps an arm around me. And I want to pull away from his embrace, but I can't. It would look too suspicious, to Constable King and to Edward.

The funeral and cremation is held two days after Charlie has been 'found'. For me it passes by in a blur of fear that somebody's going to find out what really happened. And then they'll come for Edward, and the Volturi will come for me.

I'm dressed in black, a colour that matches the state my soul must be in by now. I have played a huge part in Charlie's killing. I was the one to snap his neck, emotionally if not physically. He got angry because of me. He threatened Edward because of me. I killed him.

Even despite the grief, my wedding day is set for the same date. I know Renee thinks I need somebody to look after me when she can't be there, and when she sees how Edward hovers over me protectively, she comes around to the thought of her daughter marrying at such a young age. To keep the secret, stop any more people being killed, I find myself pleading with her to let me marry him. I'm being trapped into this wedding, by my own volition.

Yet marrying Edward seems so right, in such a twisted, crazy way. Through some sort of logic I don't really understand, the same force that bound me to Edward the first time I saw him binds me to him through this. I am the only human who knows about vampires, and we are the only two to have witnessed Charlie's death. If we marry and I am changed, the Cullens' secret will stay safe and the Volturi would stay away. I couldn't do anything else for them.

And what's more, I can never tell anyone that Edward killed my own father for my sake. I need to make up for what I've done. I need to bear the consequences for the rest of my life, no matter how much I want to run away now.

I tell myself this, but I cry more than ever. Sometimes my tears are for my father, sometimes they're fear of Edward, and sometimes they're fear of my future. Married to a man I'm afraid of? Changed into a vampire, frozen forever? At least then I could get away from Edward, but I'd be frozen forever. And I want to live now. I don't want to be frozen. I want to experience as many things as possible, I want to forget about vampires and the constant thoughts of death that plague me when I'm with them.

When I cry, Angela, not Alice, is there to help me. I never see Alice anymore. And other times Edward is there. If he is, my tears end when he kisses them away, my fear making those kisses seem ever more passionate and painful. I want him anyway; my traitor heart frightens me like nothing else. I have to hope, have to believe that my love, my need for him, is getting less.

And as the days go by, constant wedding preparations and these same thoughts constantly in my head take their toll. Gradually I am resigning myself to my fate. Gradually, despite Angela's visits and my mom's presence in the house, I'm losing touch with the world. Edward is taking me over. My waking thoughts are about him, whether crazy, unworkable plans of how to escape, or thoughts (how I hate those thoughts!) of how much I desire him. I shiver whenever he's not with me, in those brief human moments he grants me, automatically trying to recreate the feeling of his cold hands. The warmth of the real world seems unreal, dim and faded and of yesteryear like a sepia photograph. My future lies more starkly ahead of me.

We spend even more time together, my every moment swallowed up by him and him alone, and I'm more scared than I've ever been in my life. It's the prolonged fear that, at any moment, I could be dead. Every night he is in my bedroom, watching over me as I hold my shoulders tense and high and breathe shallowly in and out, always half-awake, never fully resting. I'm too scared of the dreams, scared of reliving memories of Charlie's death every time I close my eyes. I have no freedom.

And still Edward watches me sleep. He says he loves me, that he wants me forever, and while I can't help but believe it, I also know that he's making sure I don't run off. I don't know if he realises it, but underneath, by instinct, he doesn't trust me. It's that instinct, that predatory instinct that knows all, that I fear.

I grow thinner. Perhaps I'm trying to starve myself to death before he can catch me and devour me alive. There will be nothing left for him to take. Every morning as I run the water in the shower, I keep it scaldingly hot on purpose and try not to stare at my thin, boiled-alive body through the fog of steam that rises up from the shower floor. The steam fogs up the bathroom mirror, too. It's a relief; that way I don't have to look at myself. I can tell myself that the tears on my cheeks are just a combination of water and steam.

I can't tell a soul. The Cullens suspect, but they won't say anything. Every time I want to let my mom or even Angela know what I have seen, my jaw locks up and I hear: y_ou must never tell anyone._ I come back to myself to find them staring at me, waiting for me to finish my sentence.

_You must never tell anyone._

Anyone. And I can't face Alice, the only person who _must_ know, who couldn't help but forsee Charlie's death once Edward made his decision. She knows and she doesn't do anything. If I see her, which is rarely these days, her eyes grow dull and she looks away from me.

_You must never tell anyone. _

It was a compulsion from Edward—how could I not obey somebody who knew what was best?

**ooo**

_He takes a step forward to retrieve the ring and the stone, cradling them gently in his fingers. I can see he is hurt. But when he looks up, I see he is more than just that. He is angered. Furious, even. I shrink into my father's coat. My father who doesn't know a thing, who can't protect me from something that is my fault. _

_Venom coats Edward's teeth. He takes a gentle step forward, menacing in its softness. "You _pestilent_ little man. Do you know how old I am? I am older than you'll ever be. I am richer, more educated, and what's more, I'm smarter. Bella doesn't deserve a father like you." _

_This insult hits Charlie more than I've ever seen one hit him before. Cuts him to the quick. But nevertheless my brave, luckless father rallies quickly._

"_Cullen, I don't know what you're talking about, but you don't want to go there with me. I've been finding things out. I've heard a few things—your brother Emmett's been getting himself into some trouble with the local wildlife, you've been bending laws... _

"_There's something odd about you. Don't know what it is. But I know I've seen you move too fast to catch Bella 'fore she falls once in a while. You always seem to know something of what I'm thinking. Your eyes aren't quite right. Every time you're out of town we get a couple of reports of animals drained of blood. I've been looking over your cases today, and somethin's not adding up. What is it, Cullen? Some ritual or somethin'? Tell me, kid. What are you doing that I don't know about?"_

_Charlie knew more than I thought. And he's jumped to the wrong conclusions, but they're close enough to stop him from giving his consent to our wedding, and to bring the media down on the Cullens. When Edward doesn't answer, he says, "I know that ain't all. I don't know what you are, but you're staying away from her."_

_Edward ignores him; his lips move softly, murmuring words that I can barely hear even though I'm so close to him. Another light step forward, the softness in his gait not matching the menace in his gaze and words. Something indefinable and alien casts a film over his eyes, and I am scared for my father. More scared than I've ever been in my life, not even when Victoria came for me. Not even when James hunted me down and cornered me._

_Something inside me already knows that he's going to kill Charlie. I want to reach out, to hug my father, to tell him goodbye and tell him I'm sorry, to beg Edward to spare his life, but my mouth is too dry and my jaw won't seem to work. My breathing makes a loud noise and I'm scared Edward will latch onto it and turn on me—he's too much of a predator right now—but I can't quieten it as Edward steps closer and closer to Charlie. Closer to his prey. _

_Charlie's eyes are wide with fear, but confused—because what is he to fear from a seventeen-year-old boy? He doesn't know the truth. These are the last moments of his life. I want to scream, but my terror chokes me up. This is danger. This is truth._

**ooo**_  
_

I walk down the aisle alone, trying not to trip over my own feet, scared to death by knowing this perfect creature could kill me with his bare hands on our wedding night, whether by accident or because he's known what I've been thinking all along. Imagining him breaking me in two, at the height of passion, with a twist of the wrists so easily, and looking at my imperfections. My naked body, a pale, broken flower covered in blood as he savours every last drop of the fragrant feast he's wanted for so long.

He would still be in the right; he could never be wrong.

I'd told him I wasn't afraid the first time he revealed he was what he was. I realise now that I hadn't truly believed it. He could kill me. As I walk up the aisle, I tremble, and do my best to smile. Why am I hiding ugly sorrows on what should have been my beautiful, beautiful wedding day?

"She looks so beautiful," I hear somebody whisper.

"So thin," says someone else. They're right. My gown had to be altered twice to accommodate my extreme weight loss. My ribs are skeletal by this point. My shoulder blades and elbows stick out sharply. When Edward undresses me tonight—tonight!—he may not like what he sees. Whether or not this is a good thing I am still undecided. I'm too thin to be beautiful. I'm too breakable to feel confident. I feel all the more aware of my heartbeat.

That could all be gone in a second. My life, what is left of it, snuffed out in an instant. I look at the Cullens, standing in front of me, seated at a piano, standing as best men, as bridesmaids, as ministers. The whole wedding is full of them. They are attempting to smile; only Edward manages it truly. Alice will not look at me, instead gazing into the distance. She was once my best friend. Now she is an accomplice to murder. My new sister-in-law.

One person is missing—the man to walk me down the aisle. Charlie. My father. Killed by my husband-to-be.

**ooo**

_The harsh noise and scent of a predator breathing heavily for the scent of his prey hangs in the air, dominating all else in the room._

_I hear a sharp _bang!—_Charlie's pulled out the gun he never hung up, he's shot Edward in the stomach, in fear for his life, but Edward doesn't even bother to dodge it—doesn't even try to stop Charlie from drawing it in the first place. It's like he doesn't seem to care anymore. Instead, the bullet ricochets off Edward's marble skin. He doesn't even falter. He just continues his slow pacing. Pace, pace, a rhythmic predatory walk. _

**ooo**

His eyes shine triumphant with overwhelming joy and love. I am his prize.

This is my last chance to get away. I have to get away. I can't.

I couldn't run down the aisle without him catching me. Without everyone wanting to know what's going on. All those stares, and a story I could tell that's too unbelievable. And now I'm standing here at the altar, taking my first vows of marriage: a commitment for life, and, if I survive the wedding night, quite a lot longer.

Till death do us part.

"You may kiss the bride," announces the minister, Angela's father.

This is the end and the beginning. And then Edward's lips come down on mine and all I can think about is him. I kiss him back with all the force I can muster. And I realise that just as I still desire him, still think that he is perfect, I still love him. Inexplicably, incomprehensibly.

He has killed my father and I am scared of him and still I can't help but want him. I am helpless, limp in his arms, weak from the struggle between the terror and the hunger this kiss awakens within me. From now on, during an eternity I'll never be able to comprehend, I will always be a slave to the war between these two sides of me, and I feel faint at the thought.

I open my eyes as our mouths caress. His own open immediately in response, those golden, golden eyes shimmering as tears of regret and terror come to my eyes and blur my vision. I blink furiously. I can't afford this. I need to see from now on, always to see.

As he pulls me closer, cold hands to my bony waist that want so much more, I refuse to think about the long journey ahead of me. He'll never let me go. And part of me will never, ever, want him to.

**ooo**

_Charlie looks at the gun, the bullet lying smoking, embedded into the floor, and back at Edward. "What are you," he whispers, truly afraid for the first time. _

_The answer, as Edward bends down to face him, forehead to forehead: "Your daughter's lover. You won't take her from me." _

**ooo**

My perfect, perfect predator draws back to look at me, cradling my painfully frail body in his arms, as I hear applause from the audience. I know that half of them don't really mean it. And taking up most of my vision is Edward's face, so perfect, so inhumanly beautiful that it scares me. I could never measure up to this. He leans down, and, always waiting for the kill, I force myself not to stiffen.

"Mine," he whispers to me in ecstasy, marble lips shaping the words that are my death sentence. "You're finally mine."

* * *

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